With collusion dismissing, several players are exploring their choices

Tuesday was a fascinating day. More intriguing days could be coming.After the NFL and NFL Players Association managed to hide the 61-page ruling in a landmark collusion arbitration for more than five months, the cat is out of the bag. And some players are paying attention.Multiple individuals who

routinely connect with players tell PFT that several players have begun to ask regarding their rights, and regarding their alternatives both regarding the league and regarding the union.As one source with knowledge of the collusion complaint told PFT, Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert would be the best complainant against either entity. The exchange in between Chargers owner Dean Spanos and Cardinals owner Michael Bidwill shows coordination(i.e., collusion)between 2 owners concerning the agreements provided to Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert and Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray.The threshold concern becomes whether Herbert is within the extra 594 veteran players

for whom damages were looked for in the collusion complaint, beyond Murray, Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson, and Broncos quarterback Russell Wilson. There’s a still-hidden list of 594 names that was attached as an exhibition to the 61-page ruling. The league would argue that, as to those players, the issue has been concluded. The counter would be that discovery was taken only regarding the three quarterbacks.

From Herbert’s point of view, there could be a bonanza of communications within the Chargers company regarding whether Herbert will(or did)want a fully-guaranteed offer, beginning in the instant after-effects of the Deshaun Watson fully-guaranteed contract.The other 593 players( if Herbert’s name is on the list)could make the same argument.

They would ask, basically, how did my rights get captured up in and snuffed out by the three-quarterback collusion case when I never had an opportunity to prove that the clear effort to encourage collusion resulted in a specific effort by my team to limit warranties in my deal?The union faces a different problem. The claim by the specific members of the NFLPA would fall under the federal duty of fair representation. And there would be

at least two different prospective avenues, as we see it.For the 594 players whose rights were bound in (and extinguished by)the existing case, they would(or a minimum of could )argue that the union failed to appropriately establish and investigate their complaints by merely lumping them in with the 3 primary claimants and without completely examining the claims. For all anybody knows, there are internal smoking-gun texts or e-mails regarding any, some, or all of the 594 players that would state, for instance,” I know [Player X] wants a fully-guaranteed agreement, however the Management Council told all groups to restrict warranties. We require to comply. “For the players not within the group of 594 who were added (probably unbeknownst to them)to the case, there’s a various issue. Because the union concealed the result from them (and everybody else)for more than 5 months, their 50-day

window under the Collective Bargaining Arrangement for submitting a non-injury grievance based on the essential finding of the collusion case has expired.This presumes that the NFL and NFLPA didn’t participate in a tolling contract that would acknowledge their shared effort to keep the collusion decision secret and give any other players who choose to continue a fresh 50 days from whenever the decision sees the light of day.

Neither the NFL nor the NFLPA reacted to the concern of whether a tolling agreement exists.Our guess is that there’s no such contract, which the NFLPA has– in their effort for whatever factor to conceal the result of the case– hindered if not beat the effort of any other player who signed an agreement before today from utilizing the collusion judgment as the starting point

for a grievance of their own.So what will take place next? It depends on the players. And it will be up to whether any lawyers out there see the benefit in litigation versus the NFL and/or the NFLPA and choose to pursue it on behalf of the players.Until that takes place, the NFL and NFLPA will( or should)be sweating out the potential implications of the players lastly understanding about the thing that was inexplicably concealed from them.